Answered prayers and the train

I wasn't quite sure what to title this post------ but I named it after the two main things mentioned in this post.

As I ended in my last post, we went back to see Dennis at 4 pm. Oddly enough, I had just talked to John earlier about how I kind of wished that I could hear Dennis cry so that I could know what he sounded like and pick up on it a mile away. Up to this point we still hadn't heard much from him although he is warming up to us more and more.

When we got to the orphanage and walked into the waiting area where his room was, we heard him crying. It was a cry that I will now never forget. Poor little guy was having his eye cleaned out and you could tell that it hurt him to have it done. My instinct was to rush in and grab him up but I knew that I was not in the position to do so------yet and neither was John. So we cried with him as we waited for what seemed like an eternity for them to hurry up and bring Dennis out to us. He was still crying when they brought him to us and John and I both immediately tried to console him. Admittedly, John was much better at doing so and we were then able to take him to the play area. His scars were all red from the crying and it took a while for his coloring to return to normal. I know this is something that he goes through everyday, but honestly I didn't think about it before now. I feel so protective of him and wish with all my heart that we can help him the best that we can once he is home to make everyday life a little easier for him.


I love this picture. Dennis is an absolute doll. He has learned to do things in his own way that John and I are only beginning to pick up on. While you would think that he would prefer to lay down on the side of his good eye as to not hurt the other one, he actually prefers to lay down on the side of the bad eye because this allows him to still see everything. If his bad eye was the one looking out, it would be useless.

He tends to crawl sideways because of how he sees things but compensates by adjusting himself to go the other way so that his crawling is kind of like a zigzag. He is so close to walking by himself but until I actually saw that he could crawl I tried not to encourage it. I didn't want him to miss this important developmental stage, but we now know that their is nothing to worry about.


The shoes that I bought him are way too big! His feet are tiny (not to mention kissable) ---probably because he was around 4.6 pounds when he was born.

On another note, many couples are here adopting right now. Two couples from Spain, one from Israel, and one Ukrainian couple who are both doctors. Probably more will come before we are finished here. While John's Spanish has come in handy for communicating with the Spanish couples, I kind of wish at least one of the couples adopting was from America so that we could communicate even better and possibly make friends. Oh well, just part of God's plan I'm sure. :)

After visiting Dennis, we had to go to the train station to send off some documents to Kyiv. We finally got to see our Ukraine Train!

Here is the front of the station.

This is not the first stray dog to see in Kramatorsk. I wish I had something to feed the skinny little thing.

I pretended to take this picture of John so that I cold actually get a picture of the police in the background. Hope I didn't do something illegal. Don't you love their hats?

Here is an actual Ukraine Train. Now I can say that I have at least officially seen one. I came close to being hit with one too because I stupidly followed the others in my party across the train walk without realizing how fast the train was actually going. Don't worry Mom, I wasn't that close.

After the train station we got dropped off at the apartment and we decided to go shopping to buy John some Coca Cola and Dennis some baby food and juice. We came upon this and found the real reason as to why this part of the city doesn't have water. Our facilitator explained that when a pipe gets old and breaks down, the city repairs it like this and therefore has to shut down all of the water in the surrounding city. No joke. Broken pipe means no water for a week or until the problem is solved------ and no they do not work at night. Tihngs like this make me so thankful that I live in America.